The sun emerged from the distant edge of the sea, burning through the fine mist that hung on the horizon. Katherine was standing on the high quartergallery, by the railing at the stern, the better to savor the easterly breeze that tousled her hair and fluttered the cotton sleeves of her seaman's shirt. The quiet of the ship was all but complete, with only the rhythmic splash of waves against the bow and the occasional groan from the masts.
She loved being on deck to watch the dawn, out of the sweltering gloom of the Great Cabin. This morning, when the first light of day brightened the stern windows, she'd crept silently from their narrow bunk, leaving Hugh snoring contentedly. She'd made her way up to the quarterdeck, where John Mewes dozed beside the steering house where he was to monitor the weathered grey whipstaff, lashed secure on a course due west.
Now she gazed out over the swells, past the occasional white- caps that dotted the blue, and tasted the cool, moist air. During the voyage she had learned how to read the cast of the sea, the sometimes fickle Caribbean winds, the hidden portent in the color of clouds and sun. She'd even begun practicing how to take latitude with the quadrant.
Suddenly a porpoise surfaced along the stern, then another, and together they began to pirouette in the wake of the ship like spirited colts. Was there any place else in the world, she wondered, quite like the Caribbean? She never tired of watching for the schools of flying fish that would burst from the sea's surface like flushed grouse, seemingly in chase of the great barracuda that sometimes flashed past the bow. And near the smaller islands, where shallow reefs turned the coastal waters azure, she had seen giant sea turtles, green leatherbacks and rusty-brown loggerheads, big as tubs and floating languorously on the surface.
The wildness of the islands and sea had begun to purge her mind, her memory. Fresh mornings like this had come to seem harbingers of a new life as well as a new day, even as the quick, golden-hued sunsets promised Hugh's warm embrace.
After Barbados they'd made sail for Nevis Island, and as they neared the small log-and-clapboard English settlement along its southern shore, the skies had finally become crystalline and dry, heralding the end of the autumn rainy season. They lingered in the island's reef-bound harbor almost three weeks while Winston careened the Defiance and stripped away her barnacles, scorched the lower planks with burning branches to kill shipworm, then caulked all her leaky seams with hemp and pitch. Finally he'd laded in extra barrels of salt beef, biscuit, and fresh water. They were all but ready to weigh anchor the day a Dutch merchantman put in with word that the Commonwealth fleet had begun preparations to depart Barbados.
Why so soon, they puzzled. Where were Cromwell's warships bound for now?
Wherever the fleet's next destination, it scarcely mattered. The American rebellion was finished. After word spread through Nevis and St. Christopher that Barbados had capitulated, all the planters' talk of Defiance evaporated. If the largest English settlement in the Americas could not stand firm, they reasoned, what chance did the small ones have? A letter pledging fealty to Commons was dispatched to the fleet by the Assembly of those two sister islands. That step taken, they hoped Calvert would bypass them with his hungry army and sail directly for Virginia, whose blustering royalists everyone now expected to also yield without a murmur.
Still, after news came that the troops were readying to move out, Katherine had agreed with Winston that they shouldn't chance being surprised at Nevis. Who could tell when the Commonwealth's warships might suddenly show themselves on the southern horizon? The next morning they weighed anchor, heading north for the first two hundred leagues, then steering due west. That had been six days ago…
"You're lookin' lovely this morning, m'lady." John Mewes' groggy voice broke the silence as he started awake, then rose and stretched and ambled across the quarterdeck toward the bannister where she stood. "I'd say there she is, sure as I'm a Christian." He was pointing south, in the direction of the dim horizon, where a grey-green land mass had emerged above the dark waters. "The pride of the Spaniards."
"What is it, John?"
"Why, that's apt to be none other than Hispaniola, Yor Ladyship. Plain as a pikestaff. An' right on schedule." He bellied against the bannister and yawned. "Doesn't look to have budged an inch since last I set eyes on her."
She smiled. "Then that must mean we're nearing Tortuga. By the map, I remember it's just off the north coast, around latitude twenty."
"Aye, we'll likely be raisin' the old ‘Turtle' any time now. Though in truth I'd as soon ne’er see the place again."
"Why do you say that?"
"'Tis home and hearth of the finest assembly of thieves as you're e’er like to cross this side of Newgate prison. An' that's the fact of the matter."
"Are you trying to make me believe you've actually been there, John?" She regarded him carefully. John Mewes, she had come to realize, was never at a loss for a story to share-though his distinction between truth and fancy was often imprecise.
"Aye,'twas some years past, as the sayin' goes. When the merchantman I was quartermaster on put in for a week to careen." He spat into the sea and hitched up the belt on his breeches.
"What exactly was it like?"
"A brig out of Portsmouth. A beamy two master, with damn’d seams that’d opened on us wide as a Dutch whore's cunny- beggin' Yor Ladyship's pardon-which is why we had to put in to caulk her…"
"Tortuga, John."
"Aye, the Turtle. Like I was sayin', she's the Sodom of the Indies, make no mistake. Fair enough from afar, I grant you, but try and put in, an' you'll find out soon enough she's natural home for the rogue who'd as soon do without uninvited company. That's why that nest of pirates has been there so long right under the very nose of the pox-rotted Spaniards. Mind you, she's scarcely more than twenty or thirty miles tip to tip, but the north side's a solid cliff, lookin' down on the breakers, whilst the other's just about nothing save shallow flats an' mangrove thickets. There's only one bay where you can put in with a frigate, a spot called Basse Terre, there on the south-that is, if you can steer through the reefs that line both sides of the channel goin' into it. But once you're anchored,'tis a passing good harbor, for it all. Fine sandy bottom, with draft that'll take a seventy-gun brig."
"So that's how the Cow-Killers… the buccaneers have managed to keep the island? There's only one spot the Spaniards could try and land infantry, and to get there you've got to go through a narrow passage in the reefs, easy to cover with cannon?"
"I'd say that's about the size of it. No bottom drops anchor at Tortuga unless those rogues say you aye." He turned and began to secure a loose piece of line dangling from the shroud supporting the mizzenmast. "Then too there's your matter of location. You see, m'lady, the island lays right athwart the Windward Passage, betwixt Hispaniola and Cuba, which is one of the Spaniards' main shippin' lanes. Couldn't be handier if you're thinkin' to lighten a Papist merchantman now and again…"
Mewes' voice trailed off as he glanced up to see Winston emerge at the head of the companionway, half asleep and still shirtless under his jerkin. Following after him was Atiba, wearing a pair of ill-fitting seaman's breeches, his bare shoulders glistening in the sun's early glow. When he spotted Mewes, he gave a solemn bow, Yoruba style.
"Ku abo, senhor."
"Aye, qu ava it is." Mewes nodded back, then turned to Katherine. "Now, for your edification that means 'greetings,' or such like. Since I've been teachin' him English, I've been pickin' up a few of the finer points of that African gabble of his, what with my natural gift for language."
"God's life, you are learning fastly, Senhor Mewes." Atiba smiled. "And since you are scholaring my tongue so well, mayhaps I should cut some of our clan marks on your mug, like mine. It is a damnable great ceremony of my country."
''Pox on your 'damnable great ceremonies.' '' Mewes busied himself with the shroud. "I'll just keep my fine face the way it is, and thank you kindly all the same."
Winston sleepily kissed Katherine on the forehead.
She gave him a long hug, then pointed toward the south. "John claims that's Hispaniola.”
"One and the same. The queen of the Greater Antilles. Take a good look, Katy. I used to hunt cattle in those very woods. That mountain range over in mid-island means we should raise Tortuga any time now." He turned and began unlashing the whipstaff, then motioned Atiba forward. "Want to try the helm for a while? To get the feel of her?"
"My damnable shoulder is good, senhor. I can set a course with this stick, or cut by a sword, as better than ever."
"We'll see soon enough." He watched Atiba grasp the long hardwood lever and test it. "I just may need you along to help me reason with my old friend Jacques."
"Hugh, tell me some more about what he's like." Katherine took another look at the hazy outline of Hispaniola, then moved alongside them.
"Jacques le Basque?" Winston smiled and thought back. Nobody knew where Jacques was from, or who he was. They were all refugees from some other place, and most went by assumed names-even he had been known simply as "Anglais." "I'd guess he's French, but I never really knew all that much about him, though we hunted side by side for a good five years." He thumbed toward the green mountains. "But I can tell you one thing for sure: Jacques le Basque created a new society on northern Hispaniola, and Tortuga."
"What do you mean?"
"Katy, you talked about having an independent nation in the Americas, a place not under the thumb of Europe? Well, he made one right over there. We boucaniers were a nation of sorts-shipwrecked seamen, runaway indentures, half of them with jail or a noose waiting in one of the other settlements. But any man alive was welcome to come and go as he liked."
Katherine examined his lined face. "Hugh, you told me you once tried to kill Jacques over some misunderstanding. But you never explained exactly what it was about."
Winston fell silent and the only sound was the lap of waves against the bow. Maybe, he told himself, the time has come. He took a deep breath and turned to her. "Remember how I told you the Spaniards came and burned out the Providence Company's English settlement on Tortuga? As it happened, I was over on Hispaniola with Jacques at the time or I probably wouldn't be here now. Well, the Spaniards stayed around for a week or so, and troubled to hang some of Jacques's lads who happened in with a load of hides. When we found out about it, he called a big parlay over what we ought to do. All the hunters came-French, English, even some Dutchmen. Every man there hated the Spaniards, and we decided to pull together what cannon were left and fortify the harbor at Basse Terre, in case they got a mind to come back."
"And?"
"Then after some time went by Jacques got the idea we ought not just wait for them. That wed best try and take the fight back. So he sent word around the north side of Hispaniola that any man who wanted to help should meet him on Tortuga. When everybody got there, he announced we needed to be organized, like the Spaniards. Then he stove open a keg of brandy and christened us Les Freres de la Cote, the Brotherhood of the Coast. After we’d all had a tankard or two, he explained he wanted to try and take a Spanish ship."
"You mean he sort of declared war on Spain?"
"As a matter of fact, that's how it turned out." He smiled. "Jacques said we'd hunted the Spaniards' cattle long enough; now we would hunt the whoreson Spaniards themselves. We'd sail under our old name of boucanier, and he swore that before we were through nobody would remember the time it only meant cow hunters. We'd make it the most dreaded word a Spaniard could hear."
John Mewes was squinting toward the west now, past the bowsprit. Abruptly he secured a last knot in the shroud, then headed down the companionway and past the seamen loitering by the mainmast.
"And that was the beginning? When the Cow-Killers became sea rovers and pirates?" For some reason the story made her vaguely uneasy. "You were actually there? A part of it?"
"I was there." Winston paused to watch Mewes.
"So then you… joined them?"
"No particular reason not to. The damned Spaniards had just murdered some of ours, Katy, not to mention about six hundred English settlers. I figured why not give them a taste back? Besides, it looked to be the start of a grand adventure. We got together as many arms as we could muster, muskets and axes, and put to sea. Us against the Spaniards…"
"Cap'n, care to come forward an' have a look?" Mewes was pointing at the dark green hump that had just appeared on the horizon. "That looks to be her, if I'm not amiss."
Winston turned to study the sea ahead of them. Just above the surface of the sea was the tip of a large hump, deep green like a leatherback turtle.
"Aye. Maybe youd best order all hands to station for the afternoon watch, John." He reached back and kissed Katherine lightly. "Katy, the rest of this little tale will have to wait. We've got to get ready now. In truth, I don't exactly know how pleased my old friend Jacques is going to be seeing me again after all these years."
As she watched him head down the companionway, she felt a curious mixture of excitement and unease. Now, all at once, she was wondering if she really did want to know what Hugh had been like back then. Perhaps, she told herself, there are some things better just forgotten.
"Bon soir, Capitaine." A young man carrying a candle-lantern was standing at the water's edge to greet their longboat as Winston, John Mewes, and Atiba, backed by five seamen with flintlocks, rowed in to the shallows. "Tibaut de Fontenay, a votre service, Messieurs. We spotted your mast lights from up at the Forte. Since you seemed to know the reefs, we assumed you had been here before. So you are welcome."
He appeared to be in his early twenties and was attired lavishly-a plumed hat topped his long curls, his long velvet waistcoat was parted rakishly to display an immaculate white cravat, and high, glistening boots shaped his calves. The dull glow of the lantern illuminated an almost obsequious grin.
Around them the dark outlines of a dozen frigates nodded in the light swell, while lines of foam, sparkling in the moonlight, chased up the shore. The Defiance had been the last vessel to navigate Basse Terre's narrow channel of reefs before the quick Caribbean dusk descended.
"The name is Winston. Master of the Defiance. " He slid over the gunwale of the longboat and waded through the light surf. "Late of Barbados and Nevis."
"Bienvenue." The man examined him briefly, then smiled again as he extended his hand and quickly shifted to heavily- accented English. "Your affairs, Capitaine, are of course no concern to us here. Any man who comes in peace is welcome at La Tortue, in the name of His Majesty, King Louis Quatorze of France."
"What the devil!" Winston drew back his hand and stared up at the lantern-lit assemblage of taverns along the shore. "Tortuga is French now?"
"Mais oui, for the better part of a year. The gouverneur of St. Christophe-the French side-found it necessary to dispatch armed frigates and take this island under his authority. The Anglais engages planting here were sent on their way; they are fortunate we did not do worse. But ships of all nations are always invited to trade for our fine hides, brasil wood for making dye, and the most succulent viande fumee you will taste this side of Paris." He bowed lightly, debonairly. "Or Londres. We also have a wide assortment of items in Spanish gold for sale here-and we have just received a shipload of lovely mademoiselles from Marseilles to replace the diseased English whores who had come near to ruining this port's reputation."
"We don't need any provisions, and we don't have time for any entertainment this stop. The Defiance is just passing through, bound for the Windward Passage. I'd thought to put in for tonight and have a brandy with an old friend. Jacques le Basque. Know if he's around?"
"My master?" The man quickly raised his lantern to scrutinize Winston's face. "He does not normally receive visitors at the Forte, but you may send him your regards through me. I will be happy to tell him a Capitaine Winston…"
"What in hell are you talking about? What 'fort' is that?"
"Forte de la Roche, 'the fort on the rock,' up there." He turned to point through the dark. On a hill overlooking the harbor a row of torches blazed, illuminating a battery of eighteen- pound culverin set above a high stone breastwork.
"When was that built? It wasn't here before."
"Only last year, Capitaine. Part of our new fortifications. It is the residence of our commandant de place.
"Your commandant…" Winston stopped dead still. "You've got a governor here now?"
"Oui." He smiled. "In fact, you are fortunate. He is none other than your friend Jacques. He was appointed to the post last year by the Chevalier de Poncy of St. Christophe, administrator of all our French settlements in the Caribbean." He examined the men in the longboat, his glance anxiously lingering on Atiba, who had a shiny new cutlass secured at his waist. "May I take it you knew Jacques well?"
"I knew him well enough in the old days, back before he arranged to have himself appointed governor. But then I see times have changed."
"Many things have changed here, Capitaine."
"I'll say they have." Winston signaled for Atiba to climb out of the longboat. "But my friend and I are going up to this 'Forte' and pay a visit to Commandant le Basque, and you can save your messages and diplomatic papers. He knows who I am."
De Fontenay stiffened, not quite sure how to reply. As he did, a band of seamen emerged out of the dark and came jostling down the sandy shore toward them, carrying candle-lanterns and tankards and singing an English chantey with convivial relish. "… We took aboard the Captain's daughter, And gave her fire 'twixt wind and water…"
Several were in pairs, their arms about each other's shoulders. All were garbed in a flamboyant hodgepodge of European fashions-gold rings and medallions, stolen from the passengers of Spanish merchant frigates, glistened in the lantern light. Most wore fine leather sea boots; a few were barefoot.
The man at their head was carrying a large keg. When he spotted the bobbing longboat, he motioned the procession to a halt, tossed the keg onto the sand, and sang out an invitation.
"Welcome to you, masters. There's a virgin pipe of Spanish brandy here we're expectin' to violate. We'd not take it amiss if you'd help us to our work."
He drew a pistol from his belt and swung its gold-trimmed butt against the wooden stopper in the bunghole, knocking it inward.
"No, Monsieur. Merci. Bien des remerciements. " De Fonte- nay's voice betrayed a faint quaver. "I regret we have no time. I and my good friend, the Anglais here…"
"I wasn't asking you to drink, you arse-sucking French pimp." The man with the pistol scowled as he recognized de Fontenay. "I'd not spare you the sweat off my bollocks if you were adyin' of thirst." He turned toward Winston. "But you and your lads are welcome, sir, whoever you might be. I'll wager no honest Englishman ever declined a cup in good company. My name is Guy Bartholomew, and if you know anything of this place, you'll not have to be told I'm master of the Swiftsure, the finest brig in this port."
Winston examined him in the flickering light. Yes, it was Guy Bartholomew all right. He'd been one of the original boucaniers, and he'd hated Jacques from the first.
"Permit me to introduce Capitaine Winston of the Defiance, Messieurs." De Fontenay tried to ignore Bartholomew's pistol. "He has asked me personally to…"
"Winston? The Defiance? God's wounds." Bartholomew doffed his black hat. "Let me drink to your good health. Captain." He paused to fill his tankard with the dark brown liquid spilling from the keg, then hoisted it in an impromptu toast.
"You don't remember me from before, Bartholomew? Back on Hispaniola?"
The boucanier stared at him drunkenly. "No, sir. I can't rightly say as I do. But yours is a name known well enough in this part of the world, that's for certain. You wouldn't be planning to do a bit of sailing from this port, would you now? ’Twould be a pleasure to have you amongst us."
"Monsieur," De Fontenay was edging on up the hill, "Capitaine Winston is a personal friend of our commandant, and we must…"
"A friend of Jacques?" Bartholomew studied Winston's face. "I'd not believe any such damn'd lies and calumnies of an honest Englishman like you, sir."
"I knew him many years past, Bartholomew. I hope he remembers me better than you do. Though I'm not sure he still considers me a friend after our little falling out."
"Well, sir, I can tell you this much. Things have changed mightily since the old days. Back then he only stole from the pox-eaten Spaniards. Now he and that French bastard de Poncy rob us all. They take a piece of all the Spaniards' booty we bring in, and then Jacques demands another ten percent for himself, as his 'landing fee.' He even levies a duty on all the hides the hunters bring over from Hispaniola to sell."
De Fontenay glared. "There must always be taxes, anywhere. Jacques is commandant now, and the Chevalier de Poncy has…"
"Commandant?" Bartholomew snorted. "My lads have another name for him, sir. If he ever dared come down here and meet us, the Englishmen in this port would draw lots to see who got the pleasure of cutting his throat. He knows we can't sail from any other settlement. It's only because he's got those guns up there at the fort, covering the bay, and all his damned guards, that he's not been done away with long before now." He turned back to Winston. "The bastard's made himself a dungeon up there beneath the rock, that he calls Purgatory. Go against him and that's where you end up. Few men have walked out of it alive, I'll tell you that."
De Fontenay shifted uneasily and toyed with a curl. "Purgatory will not be there forever, I promise you."
"So you say. But you may just wind up there yourself one day soon, sir, and then we'll likely hear you piping a different tune. Even though you are his matelot, which I'll warrant might more properly be called his whore."
"What I am to Jacques is no affair of yours."
"Aye, I suppose the goings-on in the fort are not meant to be known to the honest ships' masters in this port. But we still have eyes, sir, for all that. I know you're hoping that after Jacques is gone, that Frenchman de Poncy will make you commandant of this place, this stinking piss-hole. Just because the Code of the boucaniers makes you Jacques' heir. But it'll not happen, sir, by my life. Never."
"Monsieur, enough. Suffit!" De Fontenay spat out the words, then turned back to Winston. "Shall we proceed up to the Forte?" He gestured toward the hill ahead. "Or do you intend to stay and spend the night talking with these Anglais cochons?"
"My friend, do beware of that old bastard." Bartholomew caught Winston's arm, and his voice grew cautionary. "God Almighty, I could tell you such tales. He's daft as a loon these days. I'd be gone from this place in a minute if I could just figure how."
"He tried to kill me once, Master Bartholomew, in a little episode you might recall if you set your mind to it. But I'm still around." Winston nodded farewell, then turned back toward the longboat. John Mewes sat nervously waiting, a flintlock across his lap. "John, take her on back and wait for us. Atiba's coming with me. And no shore leave for anybody till morning."
"Aye." Mewes eyed the drunken seamen as he shoved off. "See you mind yourself, Cap'n. I'll expect you back by sunrise or I'm sendin' the lads to get you."
"Till then." Winston gestured Atiba to move alongside him, then turned back to De Fontenay. "Shall we go."
"Avec plaisir, Capitaine. These Anglais who sail for us can be most dangereux when they have had so much brandy." The young Frenchman paused as he glanced uncertainly at Atiba. The tall African towered by Winston's side. "Will your… gentilhomme de service be accompanying you?"
"He's with me."
"Bon. "He cleared his throat. "As you wish."
He lifted his lantern and, leaving Bartholomew's men singing on the shore, headed up the muddy, torch-lit roadway leading between the cluster of taverns that comprised the heart of Basse Terre's commercial center.
"How long has it been since you last visited us, Capitaine?" De Fontenay glanced back. "I have been matelot to Jacques for almost three years, but I don't recall the pleasure of welcoming you before this evening."
"It's been a few years. Back before Jacques became governor. ''
"Was this your home once, senhor?" Atiba was examining the shopfronts along the street, many displaying piles of silks and jewelry once belonging to the passengers on Spanish merchantmen. Along either side, patched-together taverns and brothels spilled their cacophony of songs, curses, and raucous fiddle music into the muddy paths that were streets.
Winston laughed. "Well, it was scarcely like this. There used to be thatched huts along here and piles of hides and smoked beef ready for barter. All you could find to drink in those days was a tankard of cheap kill-devil. But the main difference is the fort up there, which is a noticeable improvement over that rusty set of culverin we used to have down along the shore."
"I gather it must have been a very long time ago. Monsieur, that you were last here." De Fontenay was moving hurriedly past the rickety taverns, heading straight for the palm-lined road leading up the hill to the fort.
"Probably some ten years or so."
"Then I wonder if Jacques will still remember you."
Winston laughed. "I expect he does."
De Fontenay started purposefully up the road. About six hundred yards from the shoreline the steep slope of a hill began. The climb was long and tortuous, and the young Frenchman was breathing heavily by the time they were halfway up.
"This place is damnable strong, senhor. Very hard to attack, even with guns." Atiba shifted the cutlass in his belt and peered up the hill, toward the line of torches. He was moving easily, his bare feet molding to the rough rock steps.
"It could never be stormed from down below, that much is sure." Winston glanced back. "But we're not here to try and take this place. He can keep Tortuga and bleed it dry for all I care. I'll just settle for some of those men I saw tonight. If they want to part company with him…"
"Those whoresons are not lads who fight,” Atiba commented. “They are drunkards."
"They can fight as well as they drink." Winston smiled. "Don't let the brandy fool you."
"Your brancos are a damnable curiosity, senhor." He grunted. "I am waiting to see how my peoples here live, the slaves."
"The boucaniers don't cut cane, so they don't have slaves."
"Then mayhaps I will drink with them."
"You'd best hold that till after we're finished with Jacques, my friend." Winston glanced up toward the fort. "Just keep I your cutlass handy."
They had reached the curving row of steps that led through the arched gateway of the fortress. Above them a steep wall of cut stone rose up against the dark sky, and across the top, illuminated by torches, was the row of culverin. Sentries armed with flintlocks, in helmets and flamboyant Spanish coats, barred the gateway till de Fontenay waved them aside. Then guards inside unbolted the iron gate and they moved up the final stairway.
Winston realized the fort had been built on a natural plateau, with terraces inside the walls which would permit several hundred musketmen to fire unseen down on the settlement below. From somewhere in the back he could hear the gurgle of a spring-meaning a supply of fresh water, one of the first requirements of a good fortress.
Jacques had found a natural redoubt and fortified it brilliantly. All the settlement and the harbor now were under his guns. Only the mountain behind, a steep precipice, had any vantage over Forte de la Roche.
"Senhor, what is that?" Atiba was pointing toward the massive boulder, some fifty feet wide and thirty feet high, that rested in the center of the yard as though dropped there by the hand of God.
Winston studied it, puzzling, then noticed a platform atop the rock, with several cannon projecting out. A row of brick steps led halfway up the side, then ended abruptly. When they reached the base, de Fontenay turned back.
"The citadel above us is Jacques's personal residence, what he likes to call his 'dovecote.' It will be necessary for you to wait here while I ask him to lower the ladder."
"The ladder?"
"Mais oui, a security measure. No one is allowed up there without his consent."
He called up, identified himself, and after a pause the first rungs of a heavy iron ladder appeared through an opening in the platform. Slowly it began to be lowered toward the last step at the top of the stair.
Again de Fontenay hesitated. "Perhaps it might be best if I go first, Messieurs. Jacques is not fond of surprises."
"He never was." Winston motioned for Atiba to stay close.
De Fontenay hung his lantern on a brass spike at the side of the stairs, then turned and lightly ascended the rungs. From the platform above, two musketmen covered his approach with flintlocks. He saluted them, then disappeared.
As Winston waited, Atiba at his side, he heard a faint human voice, a low moaning sound, coming from somewhere near their feet. He looked down and noticed a doorway at the base of the rock, leading into what appeared to be an excavated chamber. The door was of thick hewn logs with only a small grate in its center.
Was that, he wondered, the dungeon Bartholomew called Purgatory?
Suddenly he felt an overwhelming sense of anger and betrayal at what Jacques had become. Whatever else he might have been, this was the man whose name once stood for freedom. And now…
He was turning to head down and inspect Purgatory first-hand when a welcome sounded from the platform above.
"Mon ami! Bienvenue, Anglais. Mon Dieu, il y a tres long- temps! A good ten years, n 'est-ce pas?'' A bearded face peered down, while a deep voice roared with pleasure. "Perhaps you've finally learned something about how to shoot after all this time. Come up and let me have a look at you."
"And maybe you've improved your aim, Jacques. Your last pistol ball didn't get you a hide." Winston turned back and reached for the ladder.
"Oui, truly it did not, Anglais. How near did I come?" He extended a rough hand as Winston emerged.
"Close enough." Winston stepped onto the platform of the citadel.
In the flickering torchlight he recognized the old leader of the boucaniers, now grown noticeably heavier; his thick beard, once black as onyx, was liberally threaded with white. He sported a ruffled doublet of red silk and had stuffed his dark calico breeches into bucket-top sea boots of fine Spanish leather. The gold rings on several fingers glistened with jewels, and the squint in his eyes was deep and malevolent.
Le Basque embraced Winston, then drew back and studied his scar. "Mon Dieu, so I came closer than I thought. Mes condoleances. I must have been sleepy that morning. I'd fully intended to take your head."
"How about some of your French brandy, you old batard? For me and my friend. By the look of things, I'd say you can afford it."
"Vraiment. Brandy for the Anglais… and his friend." The boucanier nodded warily as he saw Atiba appear at the top of the ladder. After a moment's pause, he laughed again, throatily. "Truly I can afford anything. The old days are over. I'm rich. Many a Spaniard has paid for what they did to us back then."
He turned and barked an order to de Fontenay. The young man bowed, then moved smoothly through the heavy oak doors leading into Jacques's residence. "You know, I still hear of you from time to time, Anglais. But never before have we seen you here, n 'est-ce pas? How have you been?"
"Well enough. I see you've been busy yourself." Winston glanced up at the brickwork house Jacques had erected above the center of the rock. It was a true citadel. Along the edge of the platform, looking out, a row of nine-pound demi-culverin had been installed. "But what's this talk you chased off the English planters?"
"They annoyed me. You know that never was wise. So I decided to be rid of them. Besides, it's better this way. A few were permitted to stay on and sail for me, but La Tortue must be French." He reached for a tankard from the tray de Fontenay was offering. "I persuaded our gouverneur up on St. Christophe to send down a few frigates to help me secure this place."
"Is that why you keep men in a dungeon up here? We never had such things in the old days."
"My little Purgatory?" He handed the tankard to Winston, then offered one to Atiba. The Yoruba eyed him coldly and waved it away. Jacques shrugged, taking a sip himself before continuing. "Surely you understand the need for discipline. If these men disobey me, they must be dealt with. Otherwise, no one remembers who is in charge of this place."
"I thought we'd planned to just punish the Spaniards, not each other."
"But we are, Anglais, we are. Remember when I declared they would someday soil their breeches whenever they heard the word 'boucanier'? Well, it's come true. They swear using my name. Half the time the craven bastards are too terrified to cock a musket when my men board one of their merchant frigates." He smiled. "Everything we wanted back then has come to pass. Sweet revenge." He reached and absently drew a finger down de Fontenay's arm. "But tell me, Anglais, have you got a woman these days? Or a matelot?" He studied Atiba.
"An Englishwoman is sailing with me. She's down on the Defiance."
"The Defiance?"
"My Spanish brig."
"Oui, but of course. I heard how you acquired it." He laughed and stroked his beard. "Alors, tomorrow you must bring this Anglaise of yours up and let me meet her. Show her how your old friend has made his way in the world."
"That depends. I thought we'd empty a tankard or two tonight and talk a bit."
"Bon. Nothing better." He signaled to de Fontenay for a refill, and the young man quickly stepped forward with the flask. "Tonight we remember old times."
Winston laughed. "Could be there're a few things about the old days we'd best let be. So maybe I'll just work on this fine brandy of yours and hear how you're getting along these days with our good friends the Spaniards."
"Ah, Anglais, we get on very well. I have garroted easily a hundred of those bastards for every one of ours they killed back then, and taken enough cargo to buy a kingdom. You know, if their Nuevo Espana Armada, the one that ships home silver from their mines in Mexico, is a week overdue making the Canary Islands, the King of Spain and all his creditors from Italy to France cannot shit for worrying I might have taken it. Someday, my friend, I will."
"Good. I'll drink to it." Winston lifted his tankard. "To the Spaniards."
Jacques laughed. "Oui. And may they always be around to keep me rich."
"On that subject, old friend, I had a little project in mind. I was thinking maybe I'd borrow a few of your lads and stage a raid on a certain Spanish settlement."
"Anglais, why would you want to bother? Believe me when I tell you there's not a town on the Main I could not take tomorrow if I choose. But they're mostly worthless." He drank again, then rose and strolled over to the edge of the platform. Below, mast lights were speckled across the harbor, and music drifted up from the glowing tavern windows. "By the time you get into one, the Spaniards have carried everything they own into the forest and emptied the place."
"I'll grant you that. But did you ever consider taking one of their islands? Say… Jamaica?"
"Mon ami, the rewards of an endeavor must justify the risk." Jacques strolled back and settled heavily into a deep leather chair. "What's over there? Besides their militia?"
"They've got a fortress and a town, Villa de la Vega, and there's bound to be a bit of coin, maybe even some plate. But the harbor's the real…"
"Oui, peut-etre. Perhaps there's a sou or two to be had there somewhere. But why trouble yourself with a damned militia when there're merchantmen plying the Windward Passage day in and day out, up to their gunwales with plate, pearls from their oyster beds down at Margarita, even silks shipped overland from those Manila galleons that put in at Acapulco…?"
"You know an English captain named Jackson took that fortress a few years back, and ransomed it for twenty thousand pieces-of-eight? That's a hundred and sixty thousand reals. "
"Anglais, I also know very well they have a battery of guns in that fort, covering the harbor. It wouldn't be all that simple to storm."
"As it happens, I've taken on a pilot who knows that harbor better than you know the one right down below, and I'm thinking I might sail over and see it." Winston took another swallow. "You're welcome to send along some men if you like. I'll split any metal money and plate with them."
"Forget it. Anglais. None of these men will…"
"Wait a minute, Jacques. You don't own them. That was never the way. So if some of these lads decide to sail with me, that's their own affair."
"My friend, why do you think I am the commandant de place if I do not command? Have you seen those culverin just below us, trained on the bay? No frigate enters Basse Terre-or leaves it- against my will. Even yours, mon ami. Don't lose sight of that."
"I thought you were getting smarter than you used to be, Jacques."
"Don't try and challenge me again, Anglais." Jacques's hand had edged slowly toward the pistol in his belt, but then he glanced at Atiba and hesitated. "Though it's not my habit to kill a man while he's drinking my brandy." He smiled suddenly, breaking the tension, and leaned back. "It might injure my reputation for hospitality."
"When I'm in the fortress overlooking Jamaica Bay one day soon, I'll try and remember to drink your health."
"You really think you can do it, don't you?" He sobered and studied Winston.
"It's too easy not to. But I told you we could take it as partners, together."
"Anglais, I'm not a fool. You don't have the men to manage it alone. So you're hoping I'll give you some of mine."
"I don't want you to 'give' me anything, you old whoremaster. I said we would take it together.
"Forget it. I have better things to do." He smiled. "But all the same, it's always good to see an old friend again. Stay a while. Anglais. What if tomorrow night we feasted like the old days, boucanier style? Why not show your femme how we used to live?"
"Jacques, we've got victuals on the Defiance."
"Is that what you think of me?" He sighed. "That I would forgo this chance to relive old times? Bring this petite Anglaise of yours up and let her meet your old ami. I knew you before you were sure which end of a musket to prime. I watched you bring down your first wild boar. And now, when I welcome you and yours with open arms, you scorn my generosity."
"We're not finished with this matter of the Spaniards, my friend."
"Certainement. Perhaps I will give it some consideration. We can think about it tomorrow night, while we all share some brandy and dine on barbacoa, same as the old days. As long as I breathe, nothing else will ever taste quite so good." He motioned for de Fontenay to lower the iron ladder. "We will remember the way we used to live. In truth. I even think I miss it at times. Life was simpler then."
"Things don't seem so simple around here any more, Jacques."
"But we can remember, my friend. Humility. It nourishes the soul."
"To old times then, Jacques." He drained his tankard and signaled for Atiba. "Tomorrow."
"Oui, Anglais. A demain. And my regards to your friend here with the cutlass." He smiled as he watched them start down the ladder. "But why don't you ask him to stay down there tomorrow? I must be getting old, because that sword of his is starting to make me nervous. And we wouldn't want anything to upset our little fete, now would we, mon frere?"
*
Katherine stood at the bannister amidships. Serina by her side, and studied the glimmer of lights along the shore, swaying clusters of candle-lanterns as seamen passed back and forth in longboats between the brothels of Tortuga and their ships.
The buccaneers. They lived in a world like none she had ever seen. As the shouts, curses, songs, and snatches of music drifted out over the gentle surf, she had to remind herself that this raffish settlement was the home of brigands unwelcome in any other place. Yet from her vantage now, they seemed like harmless, jovial children.
Still, anchored alongside the Defiance were some of the most heavily armed brigantines in the New World-no bottom here carried fewer than thirty guns. The men, too, were murderers, who killed Spanish civilians as readily as infantry. Jacques le Basque presided over the most dreaded naval force in the New World. He had done more to endanger Spain's fragile economy than all the Protestant countries together. If they grew any stronger, the few hundred men on this tiny island might well so disrupt Spain's vital lifeline of silver from the Americas as to bankrupt what once had been Europe's mightiest empire…
The report of a pistol sounded from somewhere along the shore, followed by yells of glee and more shots. Several men in Spanish finery had begun firing into the night to signal the commencement of an impromptu celebration. As they marched around a keg of liquor, a cluster of women, prostitutes from the taverns, shrieked in drunken encouragement and joined in the melee.
"This place is very frightening, senhora." Serina shivered and edged next to Katherine. Her hair was tied in a kerchief, African style, as it had been for all the voyage. "I have never seen branco like these. They seem so crazy, so violent."
"Just be thankful we're not Spaniards, or we'd find out just how violent they really are."
"Remember I once lived in Brazil. We heard stories about this place."
"'Tis quite a sight, Yor Ladyships." John Mewes had ambled over to the railing, beside them, to watch for Winston. "The damnedest crew of rogues and knaves you're ever like to make acquaintance with. Things've come to a sad pass that we've got to try recruitin' some of this lot to sail with us."
"Do you think they're safe ashore, John?"
"Aye, Yor Ladyship, on that matter I'd not trouble yourself unduly." Mewes fingered the musket he was holding. "You should've seen him once down at Curasao, when a gang of Dutch shippers didn't like the cheap price we was askin' for a load of kill-devil that'd fallen our way over at… I forget where. Threatened to board and scuttle us. So the Captain and me decided we'd hoist a couple of nine-pound demi's up on deck and stage a little gunnery exercise on a buoy floatin' there on the windward side o' the harbor. After we'd laid it with a couple of rounds, blew it to hell, next thing you know the Butterboxes…"
"John, what's that light over there? Isn't that him?"
Mewes paused and stared. At the shoreline opposite their anchorage a lantern was flashing.
"Aye, m'lady. That's the signal, sure enough." He smiled. "Didn't I tell you there'd be nothing to worry over." With an exhale of relief, he quickly turned and ordered the longboat lowered, assigning four men to the oars and another four to bring flintlocks.
The longboat lingered briefly in the surf at the shore, and moments later Winston and Atiba were headed back toward the ship.
"It seems they are safe, senhora." Serina was still watching with worried eyes. "Perhaps these branco are better than those on Barbados."
"Well, I don't think they have slaves, if that's what you mean. But that's about all you can say for them."
A few moments later the longboat bumped against the side of the Defiance, and Winston was pulling himself over the bulwarks, followed by Atiba.
"Katy, break out the tankards. I think we can deal with Jacques." He offered her a hug. "He's gone half mad-taken over the island and run off the English settlers. But there're plenty of English boucaniers here who'd like nothing better than to sail from somewhere else."
"Did he agree to help us?"
"Of course not. You've got to know him. It's just what I expected. When I brought up our little idea, he naturally refused point-blank. But he knows there're men here who'll join us if they like. Which means that tomorrow he'll claim it was his idea all along, then demand the biggest part of what we take for himself."
"Tomorrow?"
"I'm going back up to the fort, around sunset, to sort out details."
"I wish you wouldn't." She took his hand. "Why don't we just get whatever men we can manage and leave?"
"That'd mean a fight." He kissed her lightly. "Don't worry. I'll handle Jacques. We just have to keep our wits."
"Well then, I want to go with you."
"As a matter of fact he did ask you to come. But that's out of the question."
"It's just as dangerous for you as for me. If you're going back, then so am I."
"Katy, no…"
"Hugh, we've done everything together this far. So if you want to get men from this place, then I'll help you. And if that means I have to flatter this insane criminal, so be it."
He regarded her thoughtfully, then smiled. "Well, in truth I'm not sure a woman can still turn his head, but I suppose you can give it a try."
Serina approached them and reached to touch Winston's hand. "Senhor, was your council of war a success?"
"I think so. All things in time."
"The branco in this place are very strange. Is it true they do not have slaves?"
"Slaves, no. Though they do have a kind of servant here, but even that's different from Barbados."
"How so, senhor?"
"Well, there've never been many women around this place. So in the old days a boucanier might acquire a matelot, to be his companion, and over the years the matelots got to be more like younger brothers than indentures. They have legal rights of inheritance, for instance, since most boucaniers have no family. A boucanier and his matelot are legally entitled to the other's property if one of them dies." He looked back toward the shore. "Also, no man has more than one matelot. In fact, if a boucanier does marry a woman, his matelot has conjugal rights to her too."
"But, senhor, if the younger man, the matelot, inherits everything, what is to keep him from just killing the older man? To gain his freedom, and also the other man's property?"
"Honor." He shrugged and leaned back against the railing, inhaling the dense air of the island. He lingered pensively for a moment, then turned to Katherine. "Katy, do remember this isn't just any port. Some of those men out there have been known to shoot somebody for no more cause than a tankard of brandy. And underneath it all, Jacques is just like the rest. It's when he's most cordial that you'd best beware."
"I still want to go." She moved next to him. "I'm going to meet face-to-face with this madman who once tried to kill you."